In First Speech Since Escape, New York Times Reporter Details Life as Taliban Captive at ICFJ Dinner

Washington, DC - New York Times reporter David Rohde said Thursday that he was “extraordinarily lucky” to have escaped the Taliban after seven months of captivity in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that other hostages have not been so lucky.

Rohde said he was stunned by his captors’ ability to move their hostages across Afghanistan and into Pakistan with impunity. He said the U.S. war in Afghanistan had not destroyed the Taliban. Instead, the fundamentalist militia had established a fully functioning state in the mountainous tribal regions of Pakistan.